The Mountain

The bus left me at a gate that hadn't been painted in years. Iron posts. Rust flaking in the wind. Beyond them, a road carved into the mountainside like a scar.

I counted the steps to the building. Two hundred and twelve.

The driver didn't wait. Engine noise fading down the switchbacks, then gone, swallowed by pine and altitude. I stood with my suitcase and a letter of admission I hadn't requested, watching clouds move through the peaks like something alive.

Aderholdt Institute. A former sanatorium, the letter said. I could believe it. The building rose from the ridge in gray stone and Gothic arches, tall windows catching light that turned everything the color of old bone. It looked like a place where people came to get well. Or to disappear.

The air tasted like pine sap and cold. I breathed it in, cataloguing. Temperature: near freezing. Wind: east, steady. Exits from this courtyard: three. The gate behind me, a side path toward the tree line, and the main doors.

Two I could reach in under ten seconds.

Inside smelled of wood polish and the particular staleness of a building that's been closed against weather for a century. My shoes echoed on the stone floor. High ceilings, arched corridors, silence thick enough to chew.

A woman at the front desk checked my name against a list. Her smile was practiced. "Miss Maren. Welcome. The headmaster would like to see you before you settle in."

Professor Emil Rask had an office that faced the mountain. The glass rattled faintly with each gust. He stood when I entered, and I registered the details automatically: late fifties, silver hair, compact frame, smile that lived only on his lips. His handshake was dry, practiced.

"Lux. May I call you Lux?" He gestured to a chair. "I'm so pleased you accepted."

I sat. The leather was cold through my skirt. "I wasn't aware I'd been invited until the letter arrived."

"Your scholarship was arranged through a benefactor program. Anonymous, I'm afraid. But they were quite insistent." He poured tea without asking if I wanted it. The cup was china, thin enough to see my fingers through. "Tell me about yourself."

"There isn't much to tell."

"Humor me."

I gave him the version. Orphan since twelve. Raised by an aunt in Zurich who'd done her duty and not much more. Good grades. Quiet. No trouble.

He listened the way a doctor listens. Nodding at intervals that didn't correspond to anything I'd said. When I finished, he leaned back. "Your mother attended Aderholdt. Did you know that?"

My thumb found the scar on my left palm. Pressed. "She mentioned it once."

"Katrine was remarkable. Truly." His voice softened. "We were very sorry to lose her."

I counted the books on the shelf behind him. Forty-seven. "Thank you."

He let the silence sit for exactly three seconds. I timed it. Then: "I think you'll find your time here meaningful, Lux. We have a close community. Students look out for one another."

He stood. The meeting was over. At the door, I paused. "Professor. The benefactor who sponsored me. Is there any way to find out who it was?"

"I wish I could help." He spread his hands. "But the program is designed to protect donor privacy. I'm sure they had your best interests at heart."

His hands didn't shake. Not even slightly.

My room was on the fourth floor, east wing. 4C. Narrow: a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a window overlooking the chapel at the north end of campus. The radiator ticked against the cold. The sheets smelled of industrial detergent.

I unpacked. Clothes in the wardrobe. Books on the desk. The photograph of my mother on the nightstand, the only one I owned. She was twenty in it, laughing at someone outside the frame. Her hair was dark like mine. Her eyes, too.

I pressed my palm against the window glass. Cold enough to ache. Below, the old chapel sat in its own shadow, Gothic arches darker than the rest of the school. Its door was chained. A sign read: STRUCTURAL CONCERNS. ENTRY PROHIBITED.

Somewhere down the corridor, voices. Laughter. The ordinary sounds of students who belonged here.

I brushed my teeth. Set my alarm. Lay in the dark and counted the seconds until my breathing evened. Two hundred and seven.

The note was there when I turned on the lamp to check the time. Slipped under the door, white paper folded once. No envelope. No signature.

Your mother's room was 4B. You're in 4C.

I held the paper until my fingers went numb. Then I folded it and put it under my pillow and lay very still in the dark, listening to the mountain wind rattle the windows of a school I never chose.

Beside me, through the wall, room 4B was empty.

But someone here knew it shouldn't be.